A Vow of Silence

Chapter 12.

Nicole

I waited in anticipation to hear the favor that Jax was to ask of me. I could tell he was uneasy with the thought of doing this; I'm sure inserting his babysitter in his private affairs was the last thing he wanted to do.

"Have you ever heard of a man named Henry Lin?" The name instantly rang a bell. Henry was the nephew of the infamous Bohai Lin. I had busted Bohai when I was a detective and almost took down his whole organization. I say almost because Henry must have picked up the pieces right after his Uncle was killed. I had tanked Bohai under every charge imaginable; prostitution, counterfeiting, gun-running, heroin trafficking, and money laundering through his restaurants.

"I may be familiar with the name," I said simply.

Jax gave me a look, "Nicole, I need you to be honest with me."

"That's quite an ask considering that you are not being completely honest with me."

Jax inhaled a sharp breath and ran his fingers through his hair. I knew I wasn't making this easy on him, but I wasn't just about to hand out information without knowing what was going on.

"Nicole."

"Jax."

He paused to look at me and I could see the corner of his lips twitch. I don't know if he found me funny or if he was just shocked I had the guts to have a smart mouth right now. "I don't want you getting mixed up in what I'm doing."

"As charming as that is, I need to know exactly what is happening. You asked me who do I work for, and I'm asking my employer to be transparent with me."

Jax took another long pause and then looked at me briefly. I'm sure I was breaking some kind of code in his book of ethics. I was neither his family nor his partner, I had no right asking to know anything. And I'm sure my history as a detective wasn't giving me any brownie points either.

"Henry killed my wife."

Jax paused for effect as he waited for my reaction. "How do you know?" I asked curiously. It seemed like a rude question to ask, especially to a man who was grieving. But I had a hard time believing that Henry ordered a personal hit on Jax's wife. It was unlike his character to do something so personal. Henry liked attention; he wanted his targets to be uncomfortable. So, that meant as much heat as possible. Killing the wife of a biker wouldn't garner a lot of media attention, at least not as much as he was looking for.

"I just do." I cocked my head to the side and gave Jax a look until he budged. "Gemma saw one of Henry's guys leaving my house the night of Tara's murder. The night of the party where I met you, she thought she recognized the guy. But she called off the hit, and said it was the wrong one."

I tried to remain calm as Jax was spilling the information, but something inside of me knew how unlikely this story was. Whether or not Gemma saw someone, the odds of it being Henry was a fifty percent chance, and to me, fifty was too big of a number. But to Jax, there was no 50/50 chance, there was only one hundred percent, and that only meant that there was a war brewing.

"When you said Diosa had some trouble, did you mean Henry?" I asked calmly.

Jax nodded his head and looked angry at the memory, "he sent his men to Diosa as a message for SAMCRO. They killed sixteen people." I clenched my eyes shut at the thought of sixteen innocents being slaughtered to death. I knew Henry Lin took after his uncle, but I had no idea that he'd become so much worse.

"Nicole, I need to know how to bury this man. I don't ever want to hear about the Lin Triad again. I want them to be nothing but a ghost story," Jax kneeled in front of me, pleading with me to give up everything I had on Henry.

It was strange for me to be in this place again, and Jax knew the weight of his ask. I had vowed never to take the badge again for what I went through, for how the people I trusted most turned their backs on me. But I never thought I'd be using the same skills for the people on the other side of the law.

"Okay, what do you want me to do?"

Jax let out a sigh of relief at my cooperation. "I'm going to need to you set something up for me. Call Jarry, she's the new sheriff, tell her everything you know about Henry Lin. I don't care about what you have to do or say, just take him down. I don't want a crumb of the Lin Triad left."

"Wait," I said confused, "you want me to bust Henry?"

"Yes," Jax said confidently, "And when you're done I need you to make sure that every fed in Charming is at this location." Jax pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it to me. I looked down to see an address scribbled on the piece of paper.

"Jax, are you sure about this?" I wasn't naïve and I knew what would happen to Jax on the street if people found out about what he did to Henry. His business with other organizations and gangs could get messy, and this could all blow up in his face.

"I'm sure."

"But Jax!"

Jax stood up and pulled me up with him. His arms swallowed me whole as he hugged my body to his. I didn't even realize I had started to get emotional until his soothing motions clicked in my mind. "Nothing is going to happen here, I got this."

I swallowed a cry that threatened to leave my lips and broke away from Jax's arms. I slowly slid back down into the chair in an effort to restore my breathing. In the last three years, nothing had brought me to my knees like this. But the scene felt so familiar, so like my run-in with Pope. I couldn't bear to watch what happened to me happen to someone else.

But Jax and I were working on two different emotions. I was overly confident and vengeful for my partner. I wanted to take Pope down because I wanted to be a hero. Jax doesn't care about being the hero, he is moving with rage, and rage alone. He not only wants Henry to pay but he also wants Henry gone.

"Okay, I'll do it," I said quietly, trying to make peace with my decision.

Jax nodded his head and held my hands in his while looking deep into my eyes. "Everything is going to be okay Nicole, you have my word."